CMC negotiations parallel pumpback

Re: Summit Daily, 2 July 08, CMC parking dispute with the Town of Breckenridge.

I can do nothing but sympathize with the CMC Board over their issue with the town. I am one of two remaining Breckenridge Sanitation District Board members who worked at negotiating the “Pumpback Project” with the Town of Breckenridge over a two-year plus period.

The quote from Bob Spuhler, outgoing CMC President, “They feel that they have us over a barrel and they can get whatever they want, that they will get it from us because we’ve got too much invested to back out,” is a most astounding CMC parallel situation.

Why? Because it’s the same conclusion the Breckenridge Sanitation Board of Directors came to at the end of the pumpback negotiations with the Town.

State agencies and citizens were behind the “Pumpback Project”. There were scheduling constraints. The sanitation department knew the pumpback piping had to go in the ground before the Highway 9 rebuild (look at Farmer’s Corner now). Breck San was running out of time to locate a new facility expansion to service already approved town and county growth.

Just as CMC, in good faith, spent money to design and start excavation on their complex, Breck San started spending money to design and engineer the pumpback. In addition, they secured funding for the project.

The entire situation seemed to become a water rights game. Breck San was negotiating in good faith, but after reading the CMC story, it appears to me that the other entities had a different agendas other than public benefit.

What a shame! The citizens lost a good public benefit project that would have placed “Wet Water” in the Upper Blue. I sincerely hope that, we the public, do not loose a second public benefit project (CMC).

Actually, I can’t help but ask myself, just who the chief negotiating strategist is for the Town? I do not know the answer to that question, but, it appears to me that the Town could use some fresh blood for that task.

Some one who doesn’t place entities “over the barrel”.